Evidence of “Aynaghar” was destroyed even after August 5, 2024, to hide the complicity of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), said the commission investigating enforced disappearances in its report to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus.

Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus will soon visit the “joint interrogation cells” popularly known as Aynaghar, said a statement yesterday.

Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, her defence adviser Maj Gen (retd) Tarique Ahmed Siddique, former director general of the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre Maj Gen Ziaul Ahsan, and senior police officers Monirul Islam and Md Harun-Or-Rashid were all involved in enforced disappearances.

Commission receives 1,600 complaints so far

Titled "Alone in the Dark: The Nightmare of Bangladesh's Secret Underground Prison", Mujib Mashal and Shayeza Walid's piece for the NYT touches upon the stories of those unlawfully detained and kept captive by Hasina's security forces

The Human Rights Watch has called upon Bangladesh to investigate recent allegations of enforced disappearances and torture including by the Detective Branch of police.

While their families search every alleyway, survivors say that they lived right around the corner in the capital city. 

Following reports that pro-Awami League contractors wielded guns during their showdown at the Public Works Department office in Pabna, two contractors handed over their firearms to police yesterday.

Nine years have passed since former BNP lawmaker M Ilias Ali and his driver Ansar disappeared from the capital, but their families are still waiting anxiously for their return home.

A man was killed and five people were injured in a clash between supporters of two union parishad chairman candidates in Madaripur’s Shibchar upazila.

Business owners and general public in Gaibandha yesterday participated in a human chain protesting the death of a shoe store owner at the house of a now-suspended Awami League leader.

Leaders and operatives of four local militant outfits are now operating an online business from behind bars to collect funds, say police investigators.

Multiple Hindu temples and homes have come under attack since Sunday in different districts.

“They took away all of my savings and the gold jewellery we had for my daughter’s wedding. We managed to flee minutes before they attacked,” 55-year-old Jhorna Rani Das said, describing the attack on her house.

The High Court yesterday directed the authorities concerned to launch a judicial enquiry into the allegation that an innocent man has been in jail instead of a convict in a drugs case.

Sixty-six writers of Bangladesh have issued a statement demanding justice for writer Mushtaq Ahmed, who died in jail custody, and the abolition of the Digital Security Act (DSA).

Five people, including Chattogram Central Jail’s superintendent, were sued yesterday for torturing a prisoner with electric shocks and drug injections.

At least 25 people were injured in separate clashes between workers and police in Kushtia and Narayanganj yesterday.

A judicial probe committee yesterday submitted its report to the High Court saying officials of Narayanganj Sadar Police Station tortured and forced three people to give confessional statements to magistrates about raping and killing a minor girl who later turned out to be alive after 49 days last year.

The family of the apprentice lawyer, who died in a prison cell of a hospital after alleged torture by members of Detective Branch of police, was able to file a murder case yesterday with a Barishal court that ordered the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) to probe the incident.